​I was running a two-day course in Facilitation Skills, teaching a bunch of tips and tools, especially those neat processes into which you can put pretty much any content.This particular format was a series of rotating pairs. It was near the end of the programme, so I quickly made up a few questions which each set of paired partners could ask each other.

The activity ran smoothly and the participants raced back to their chairs to make notes. ‘What were those questions we just asked?’, they demanded. ‘What do you remember them to be?’, I parried - still in facilitator mode.

It so happened that my questions were all flavoured with a solutions focus. That’s because SF is the way that I think, even though in terms of the format we were learning the wording of the questions was irrelevant...

It was a routine training conference, about five years ago. Between sessions, there was a nice moment when a guy in shorts and long hair played some jazz on the piano at the side of the stage. We were waiting for a festival manager to lecture on the recruitment policy for a Danish arts festival. The pianist paused, stood up on the stage and began his presentation. He was Espen Bardsen of the Roskilde Festival.